Parish Council Meeting 17th December 2024 DRAFT Minutes

Meeting of Hickling Parish Council

Minutes of the Parish Council meeting held on Tuesday 12^th November 2024 at the Village Hall, Hickling commencing at 7.00pm.

Councillors present:            Cllrs Playle (Chair), Conway, Green, and Prosser

Also in attendance:              Cate Stokes (Parish Clerk) and 3 parishioners.

• Opening – Cllr Playle opened the meeting at 7pm

• Apologies – Cllr Lamb and RBC Cllr Combellack and NCC Cllr Rowe

• Declarations of Interest – none

• Acceptance of Minutes – Minutes from PC meeting held on 12th November 2024

Agreed by all

• Open Session – To address matters raised by the public, limited to 15mins

• Representative from the Village Hall committee wished to thank the PC for supporting the village Christmas party which was very successful. The event was well attended and all the raffle tickets were sold allowing a donation to be made to the Friary.

• Parishioner raised concerns about the footpath on Main Street in Hickling between Bridegate Lane and Water Lane Farm. It has a very steep camber and the pavement is badly damaged due to the heavy farm traffic driving over it. This is becoming dangerous to navigate in particular in the dark nights as there are no street lights in this part of the village.

Clerk to report to highways

• Parishioner requested that the road surface between Hickling and Kinoulton be repaired as there are now many large potholes.

Clerk to report to Highways

• Parishioners asked about the footpath from A606 from Hickling Pastures and one on Green Lane towards Upper Broughton that have previously been reported as being obstructed

Clerk reported that they have been reported to the highways team and they have contacted land owners to arrange clearing them. Clerk will follow up to get an update.

• Ward Member Reports
  • Cllr Combellack sent a report via email

The Borough Council brought forward 2 at full Council on 5th December.

• regarding car cruising/meets and unlawful gatherings, affecting many major roads and areas in the Borough, causing a risk to public safety.

Council resolved to write to the Home Secretary and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government requesting new legislation to address the issue.

• The other to support our farmers – writing to the Chancellor calling upon her to reverse the changes to Inheritance Tax imposed in the last budget.

TVIDB and Dalby Brook – Cllr Combellack attended a board meeting and area tour on 28th November which was extremely informative and positive. The drainage board, are now taking the flooding concerns around the Dalby Brook in Hickling seriously and state that the catchment review and surveys of the watercourse will be added to their work program. There has been some work on the Brook in recent weeks. Requested that NCC Flood Risk team approach CRT and they responded on 9th December to say “their engineering team are bringing together some more information on this issue”

Work has been completed on the broken pipe work at the South end of Main Street. It appears it was a broken sewer.

Traffic survey – Cllr Combellack is pleased the PC are looking into the increase in traffic and speed throughout the village and would urge people to let them know of any incidents which have occurred and possibly not been reported.

Bingham Neighbourhood Policing team are operating a Drink & Drug Drive campaign and stopping all vehicles.  There have been a number of people caught including those leading to unexpected drug warrants.

• Items requiring a decision

• To set a budget for 2025/2026: Cllr Prosser presented the current spending from the 2024/25 budget. Noting an underspend on Community projects and community engagement funds. Suggested that some of this went towards funding the traffic survey and purchase of a remembrance flag that can be flown each year from the Village Hall flag pole.

Cllr Prosser outlined the proposed budget for 2025/2026. It was proposed that the PC consider beginning to build a reserve for the replacement costs of the three community defibrillators that are likely to require significant maintenance/replacement in 2027. It was suggested that some money also be ringfenced for playground maintenance as the cradle seat is starting to show wear and tear. Full details of proposed budget and be viewed and on the website.

                                                               Proposed budget of £15977 agreed by all

• To set a precept for 2025/2026: Based on the agreed budget as set out on appendix A, and the projected income from other sources (including the cemetery), Cllr Prosser proposed the PC request a Precept of £12000, for 2025/2026 which will equate to a reduction per band D household of 0.6%.                                                                                                             Agreed by all

• Other Items
  • Hickling Pastures noticeboard update – This is now in place, PC thanked Cllr Rowe for his work organising this and also Simon Lane and Alan Herd for their hard work getting the letters changed and the noticeboard installed
  • Hickling Pastures Footpath – The highways team have been out and surveyed the footpath and been in touch with the land owner to arrange clearing. Clerk to follow up.
  • Flood warden policy – Clerk has been in touch with the flood group and a draft policy has been out together to send to NCC.
  • Bridegate lane Trees – Cllr Conway has been to look at the possibility of positioning trees on the Standard. The original trees have been planted along Hickling Main Street, the canal and Long Clawson Lane. Clerk to contact Rushcliffe council to ask if there are more trees available.
  • On demand Bus service – Cllr Prosser reported from a meeting with Pete Mathieson and Cllr Cottee to discuss concerns from Hickling residents about the new bus service.

They reported that the customer service centre currently has a high turnover of staff that require training so there are currently teething problems. The current system uses ‘dynamic booking’ to increase efficiency on the buses however this can lead to unexpected changes to the bus arrival time and longer journey time. Cllr Prosser reported that users can add a PRIORITY listing when booking their journey and this will reduce the influence of the dynamic booking system if they need to get to an appointment or make a connection at a specific time.

The volume of text messages sent to users are to prevent people leaving their home before they need to for example if the dynamic booking system changes the arrival time to accommodate more users.

The bus journey can also be followed through the app on a smart phone

If a bus is delayed then drivers are meant to call users to prevent them from leaving their house too soon and waiting longer than necessary outside, however, this is not occurring. Customer services are going to remind drivers to do this.

Return journeys: It was noted that if a customer is delayed on their return journey and miss a bus, the driver will contact the user and advise them to call and rebook for a later journey on the same day.

They have agreed to look into moving the bus stop in Keyworth Square to enable users to wait in the official bus stop with a shelter.

They have offered to look at personlising the service for Hickling users without an alternative. Cllr Prosser has reported back to the users and advised them to keep a diary of their experience with the service over the next few weeks.

Cllr Prosser to follow up in the New Year.

• Traffic Survey – Cllr Green reported that for traffic calming to be considered the village needs to either meet the following criteria

• 250 vehicles passing an hour or a significant number of cars braking the 30mph speed Clerk has spoken to Colston Basset who have carried out speed watch session who are happy to advise if PC would like. Clerk also to investigate the possibility of traffic counters temporary to be used at key points in the village.
• Accident records are needed for the village. Cllr Green and the Clerk have been in touch with NCC and the local police to try and obtain these records.
• Public support is required for any traffic calming measures. Cllr Green is investigating the possibility of conducting a traffic survey in the village. Only local council known to have done this is Upper Broughton in 2017, Cllr Green has contacted current Clerk to look in to what they did.

Clerk to contact previous Clerk of Upper Broughton at that time to find out more,

• VE-day 80 2025 – There are currently no plans in the village. Revisit in the New Year

• Planning

Reference Number: 24/01964/LBC

Applicant: Mr & Mrs A Reek

Development: Replacement of existing timber windows with exact replicas, includes 7no. windows on east elevation, 2no windows on north elevation and 1no. window on west elevation

Location: The Cottage  Main Street Hickling Nottinghamshire LE14 3AQ

Application discussed outside of meetings – no objection

• Decision Notices

REFERENCE NO : 24/01510/FUL

APPLICANT : Mr Robert Oxby

DEVELOPMENT : Single storey ‘self-build’ dwelling

LOCATION : Land South Of Hillcrest Bridegate Lane Hickling Pastures

Nottinghamshire

Application refused

• Finance

Balance of accounts: 10.12.24

Current Account: £18340.56

Reserve Account: £3935.94

Date of next meeting: TBC – proposed date 21^st January